RIGA, August 6. /TASS/. The Russian Embassy in Latvia has blasted Riga’s stance on recent rallies in Moscow, in which "legal actions by law enforcement authorities at unsanctioned rallies in Moscow are presented as allegedly unjustified violence towards innocent people."
"Take your blinders off, look at similar or even tougher actions from police in other European countries, there are enough examples of that," the Russian embassy said in a post on its Facebook account in response to critical remarks from Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics.
"Maybe then you will come to understand that not everything is alright in Latvia itself, for example with human rights. Problems must be solved instead of piling them up for decades," the embassy said.
Unauthorized protests in Moscow
According to the Moscow police force, police and national guardsmen on August 3 detained about 600 people for participation in an unauthorized demonstration which gathered about 1,500. On July 27, about 3,000 participated in the demonstration and more than 1,000 of them were detained. Eighty-eight were put under administrative arrest. The authorities warned the demonstrators of their responsibility and impermissibility of legal violations. The police warned of the risks of various provocations at unauthorized actions and called Moscow residents and visitors to refrain from participating in them.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office is conducting an administrative investigation of 15 unregistered candidates in the forthcoming Moscow City Duma elections who organized unauthorized protests on July 14 and 27.
Meanwhile, Edgars Rinkevics has urged Moscow to "abide by its international commitments on human rights, stop unjustified violence towards innocent people and release those who were detained."